Conservative Activist Andrew Breitbart Dies

Conservative Activist Andrew Breitbart Dies, Conservative media publisher and activist Andrew Breitbart, a firebrand who was embraced by anti-tax, conservative tea partiers and reviled by liberals for his Internet investigations that brought down politicians and chastised mainstream journalism, died Thursday at age 43.

Breitbart was behind investigations that led to the resignations of former Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York and former U.S. Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod.

His loudmouth style was lionized by his fans for exposing government corruption and media bias. He was a colorful and often abrasive user of Twitter, including a final message that called a follower a “putz.”

Breitbart was skilled at finding issues that pushed conservative buttons while pulling Internet traffic to his websites anchored to news aggregator Brietbart.com.

“I’m committed to the destruction of the old media guard,” he once said. “And it’s a very good business model.”

It also was a radical departure from conservative voices of the past such as William F. Buckley Jr.

“I do what I do because the mainstream media chooses not to do it,” Breitbart said. “The game of the left controlling the narrative … is ending.”